


The Dying Detective

by cranberryloops (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cranberryloops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days John finds it difficult to remember the fall wasn't real. Sherlock is gone, and John can still vividly picture black curls drenched in red and the feeling of no pulse in the familiar wrist.<br/>Some days, a London without Sherlock is unbearable.<br/>The day John is sitting in Mycroft's office and hears Sherlock is back happens to be one of those days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dying Detective

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a palate cleanser, actually. I was in a mood and needed to get rid of it to concentrate on something else and this did it. It also allowed me to experience forms and ideas I don't usually explore in fanfic, so that was fun.
> 
> A huge, huge thank you to [Professorfangirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lizeckhart/pseuds/professorfangirl) for an insightful and considerate beta, she contributed a lot for this story to be legible and clear. Any remaining mistakes are, of course, completely my own. 
> 
> Also a big shout out to the [Antidiogenes Club](http://antidiogenes.tumblr.com/), this fic was written solely during word wars and edited during sad hour so thank you guys!

It's the bitter taste on his tongue as he looks out of the window that he remembers after, the dusty silence of the oak wood and the yellowing pages as his chest tightens and he forces out a labored breath.

It's not a conversation John was ready to have, not a conversation he was ever expecting to have. It's miserable, and it's petty, and John has nothing to do with it anymore.

"Prodigal," he tells Mycroft, smiling bitterly. Neither of them is religious, but it's the only thing that comes to mind. And all the same it's ridiculous, Sherlock is not a wayward child no matter what his brother might imply, and John is not going to welcome him back with open arms. Not going to kiss him, thankful for something grudgingly offered.  

Mycroft huffs his disapproval on John’s choice of words as expected, the edges of his mouth turned down in an almost grotesque scowl.

“Sherlock makes his own choices without consulting me." Mycroft says.

And he means there's nothing either of them can do because Sherlock moved himself too close, that there's nothing one can offer him but exasperated acceptance.

But John has offered more; he has lain bare the map of his soul, written in skin and scars and spread before Sherlock's greedy eyes. And even then John got lost. Shoved into an old storage basement in Sherlock's mind palace and left there to accumulate dust until he suffocates with sulphur.

John stands up and walks out, his hand tightening for a second on the cold metal of the door handle. He holds on for a little too long, presses hard and waits for something, anything, to break. If Mycroft tries calling after him he doesn't hear.

 

The air outside is crisp and wet. John walks the familiar streets in silence. London is grey around him, shadows of people with their collars up pass him on their way, but he doesn't look. He doesn't want to know what they ate this morning, or which one of them is having an affair, doesn't try to notice ink-smudged fingers or muddy shoes. It doesn't matter anyway, the memory of trying to imitate under Sherlock's satisfied eyes is just another shard of glass lodged under his skin. There's no use reliving every content moment he and Sherlock shared.

London is a city filled with blank faces and John's afraid to look up and meet a familiar stare.  He'd stop, he knows he will, and then they will both be dead.

Memories. Bitter and soft like early morning kisses. That’s all he has now, and he's not sure he wants them. Would gladly have given them away for the promise of a solid body next to his at night.

Sherlock.

Naked and shameless on the white sheets, stretching his body and lifting his hips off the bed, sinful, lustful, dangerous. Eyes dark and shining with bottomless wonder, threatening to swallow John whole. A hand moving down, pale skin on pale skin, almost not touching. Not real. Too much.

John hates him, like that.

Hates the smile and the power behind it. Loves the face wearing it, even now.

"He's back," Mycroft said and John walked out.  

His legs are carrying him in the opposite direction of where he wants to go. It's will never be safe to take the route he wants to, look up and search for a tall figure with a head full of curls in the London crowd.  

John didn't expect him to ever be back, he thought Sherlock would go away, move to Paris or New York, find someone else to consume until they burn.

Sherlock was a thunderstorm, a black whistling wind that threatened to wreck John at any given moment. A force beyond anything he ever knew that almost consumed John, and their bed, their life. The whole of Baker Street even might have been sucked at some point into the stubborn intensity that was Sherlock Holmes. 

Sharp nails on John's nape, possessing and desperate in their own deranged way. 

A breathless gasp and a quiet moan and it doesn't matter which belongs to whom.

John wasn't happy with Sherlock, he knows. He never could be. There's a quiet to happiness, a satisfied buzz of warm humid air and red mountains rising over ochre plain in a foreign land Sherlock could never be. Sherlock was as beautiful as Afghanistan but in a painful, restless way, all sharp edges and demanding lips.

Sherlock could never hold someone in his arms without hurting them. Grabby hands and no regard for privacy.  John could imagine him, watching from a terrace on a petit rue in Paris or swishing his long coat going down a stair case leading to a New York subway, that face and those eyes. Needy, gorgeous, regretful.

Maybe alone and maybe not.

John wishes he would be. Hunted and solitary, two nicotine patches and a cigarette between his lips.

He wished he really were dead, sometime, so John wouldn't have to wake up each morning with hope enveloping in his heart just to have to stifle it each night as he closes his eyes, alone.   

The first few hours were even worse. It felt like being submerged, unable to breathe properly and only being allowed unexpected desperate gasps of air. The doctors at the A&E took one look at him, shaking and on gourd and ruled it was a severe concussion. They made him stay there for observation the next few days. John knew how long Mycroft's long reach was as well as he knew what PTSD looked like, but he honestly didn't care enough to argue the point.    

The concern was a valid one, after all.

For those short few days, lying in a hospital bed and listening carefully as Molly whispered the truth in his ear again and again until he believed her, John used to wish for Sherlock to stay hungry that way for the rest of his life. A malicious, bitter thought that came with seeing that figure dive down, flailing in the air.

John can remember that moment sharply, a broken name on his lips and a silent prayer in his heart. _Please God, let him live._

He doesn't think he could ever forget it, and he doesn't need to – he can relive it every night in his dreams.

Only in John's terrors the Sherlock standing on St. Barth is darker, crueler, a fallen angel waiting for his cue to fool the world.

"Take me with you," John pleads with him on his mobile.

"What use could you possibly be in hell," Sherlock smiles sadly at him. Only it's fake, fake detective, fake death, fake heart.

"Anything," John promises.

And Sherlock laughs as he falls. Flies. Falls.

And then it's John's body lying on the ground, blood pooling around his sandy hair at Sherlock leans down and puts a hand on his wrist.

"Just back from Afghanistan, " Sherlock says to no-one.

The dream repeated itself relentlessly, John's fists clenched in the hospital sheets at night, trying to hold on as Sherlock tore his world apart from a distance. He held on to his sanity, to the survival instinct that always drove him forward. He held on to the metal railing as Molly's gentle hand touched his shoulder. The world around him was dissolving, and John desperately tried to find something he can hold on to. It's not every day you watch your best friend commit suicide and have your lover leave you behind the next day.

John was always made of strong nerves and capable hands, he had a heart, but it was never fragile. It took a special kind of man to shatter that heart, it took a mad genius to make sure those pieces stay inside of John forever, cutting into his flesh from inside, hurting him with every breath he takes.  

 

He doesn't walk faster now despite the rain falling more heavily, weary of overtly observant eyes that might read something in the set of his shoulders, or the way he holds his head. Might conclude that somewhere in London Sherlock Holmes is alive from the way John seems to breathe deeper, mouth slightly parted in trepidation. 

John wonders, for the hundredth time, if it's waking up holding a shaking body, hand pressed against a heaving chest and lips kissing a fast heart beat that made Sherlock leave John behind. If it's a real fear that John would be a dangerous baggage to carry around as Sherlock executes his plan, or if he just didn't need him.

John remembers boarding a plane back to England with the cold realization that the war would go on without him. And Sherlock is a battlefield if John has ever seen one, so it's natural John loves him more than he needs John. It's a cold, heartless fact. But sometimes it's necessary – like a bullet fired from a window in the building across the way.

London is a big city, two people can live there all their lives and never meet more than once. And that's how it must be, John is being closely followed, he knows. A meeting with Sherlock is death sentence for them both.

And yet, here is John, leading them to Molly Hooper's building. He stands in front of it, waiting, staring through the curtain of dirty rain at the windows. The only reason he's still alive is because they need a confirmation.

The buttons on the intercom system are yellowing, and most of the original names were crossed over by new tenants. Molly Hooper's name in elegant letters is apartment 12. 

"What?" Molly answers testy to the intercom and John's breath hitches immediately.

"I'm sorry, who is this?" she amends, but her voice is still verging on panic.  

"It's John," he said hoarsely to the static noise.

"Okay," Molly whispers before buzzing him in.

John's body is tense as he runs up the staircase. The tiles on the landing are a mismatched brown and yellow, a sandy colour you rarely see in buildings anymore. The walls were white once, but are long washed down to a dirty grey. The dents in the plaster punctuated by black scratches that form moving pictures for John's eyes as he mounts. 

His hands are wet on the railing and his steps in the empty staircase are almost as loud as the roaring in his ears.

"What happened to you?" she asks, alarmed, with her mousy face peeking out the door when she sees him.

John wipes at his face, his hands cold and wet.

He wants to hate Molly, wants to hate her with the passion he saves for hating and loving one man. He's afraid to ask.

"Come in."

The red-soaked bandage is a direct contradiction to how colourless Sherlock's face is, propped on cushions in the middle of the room. His coat spread beneath him like black wings on the floor.

John is on his knees next to him in seconds, but his hands don't reach out. The bandage covers Sherlock's stomach, he breathes evenly.     

"I took out the bullet but I didn't want to move him," Molly says behind him, and Sherlock opens glassy eyes.

"John," he says silently, closes his eyes and repeats, "John."

Molly's hall doesn't have a window, the door behind them is locked, but that might not mean much.

"Did you give him anything?" he asks Molly over his shoulder.

"Just Paracetamol," Molly answers just as Sherlock moans and whispers, "Touch me."

John lets himself focus on any sound coming from the living room, licks his lips. The raindrops are banging against the glass and the world is made of sharp, vibrant colours again.

They could be dead any minute.

His cold hand must be a relief against Sherlock's hot skin ah he gently cups a cheek, traces the tips of his fingers over dry, chapped lips, strokes over one closed eyelid and then the other.   

Sherlock forces his eyes open. "You're angry," he says. "You can't be angry – I'm dying."

Molly gives a soft noise of distress. "You're not dying anymore."

 _Never again._ John promises.

 

"You left me behind," John whispers into Sherlock's neck as Molly goes into the kitchen to make tea. It's the first time he lets his eyes leave the door.

"I came back," Sherlock rumbles to the ceiling, face contorted in a scowl of pain.

"Yes." John smiles against sweaty, familiar skin. "That was idiotic too." 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm not around much anymore, so I won't be replying to any comments, should you choose to leave one. But thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this!


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